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ROSITA VALLEY?In the tiny border settlement of Rosita Valley, a low-income area southeast of Eagle Pass where most people don’t have insurance and the majority of the population lives in mobile homes, hope is on the horizon and the valley is beginning to fill again.
After 18 days of disaster relief efforts because of a category F3 tornado that left the community in shambles on April 24, SBTC disaster relief teams have left Rosita Valley?a clear sign of progress, as the small community is beginning to support itself and is now preparing for the rebuilding process.
“Our main objective was to get into position where we can provide ministry,” said Jim Richardson, the SBTC’s state director of disaster relief.
Carolynn Spencer, who served by preparing meals for the community and workers, commented that at the start of their efforts, she and other volunteers in conjunction with the Salvation Army were preparing two meals a day for 1,400 people. By the end of their stay, they were serving roughly 500 people.
“As the need went away, so did we,” said Spencer, whom the team referred to as “Mom” because of her persistent help to workers. She is a member of the Church on Rush Creek in Arlington.
“We moved it from state level to the local level,” she said. “Once you get to the point where the local churches can cook the food, then we back off.”
The organization consists of three main elements: clean-up and recovery, feeding, and communications.
For Southern Baptists, who boast the third-largest disaster relief organization in the United States with 73,000 members, churches are vital to the relief and ministry efforts. The greatest goal of the ministry is to connect the relief efforts to the local church by assisting them in their needs.
“We want all of our ministry to relate back to the church,” Richardson said. “After we are gone, people aren’t going to remember what disaster relief organization we were affiliated with…. They are, however, going to know that we were at that church.”
By working so closely with churches, the DR teams help connect people with the local church, where they can be ministered to.
For the victims and the disaster relief teams, tragedies often serve as a time for the Lord to bring about goodness after such a dark, devastating period. Many disaster relief volunteers see this as an opportunity to mend hearts and lives.
“It humbled me quite a bit,” said Roland Spivey, who served as a chaplain in Rosita Valley, his first disaster relief tour. “I was able to lead a girl and her mother to the Lord? Otherwise, I would have never seen them.”
Spivey and four other men spent a week in the Valley. They spoke to nearly 120 people about Jesus Christ and planted seeds. In their time served, four people were saved. Overall at least eight known salvations occurred, but some in the ministry think that as many as 12 might have begun a relationship with Christ.
For the most part, the town seemed hopeful for the future and were determined to make things better, the relief workers said. Many of the victims began forming bonds and relating to one another in meaningful ways.
“Neighbors were working together, helping one another ? almost every place I went to there were two or three families working together,” commented Spencer, who works in real estate appraisal. “They knew they were going to put their community back together.”
The response teams usually become very close to the other team members, encouraging one another and forming long lasting relationships.
“I have become real close to these folks,” said Darryl Cason, director of volunteer chaplains for the SBTC. “It becomes a family situation.”
Close relationships during disaster relief are very important for the team members because it offers them someone to talk with about the damage and tragedies that they witness.<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Trebuchet MS; mso-spacerun: yes"
